Men
Number of Champions: 12 (I'm gonna include Kulik and Urmanov, as they won Olympics w/out worlds)
Number that won World Jrs: 5 (Eldredge, Petrenko, Kulik, Plushenko, Yagudin)
Number that medalled at World Jrs: 7 (the above five + Urmanov and Lysacek)

Ladies
Number of Champions: 14 (Including Hughes)
Number that won World Jrs: 7 (Yamaguchi, Kwan, Sato, Slutskaya, Ando, Asada, Kim)
Number that medalled at World Jrs: 10 (+Hughes, Meissner, and Chen Lu)

I just feel like junior competitions, on the world, grand prix, and national stage are somewhat unpredictable in their indication of future stars for a few reasons:

1.) On the junior level, a lot of skaters are inconsistent. This can be due to nerves, growth spurts, injuries, strong emotions which are all highly present during the years most skaters skate juniors.

2.) Pre-pubescent skaters are grouped together with fully grown skaters and the ages range from 13 to 19 at a single competition. So a mature 18 year old can beat a tiny 14 year old jumping bean mainly through PCS even though the 14 year old may have much more potential to be a big threat in the future and the 18 year old may be just mediocre on the international stage.

3.) Seniors can skate as juniors so it messes up the competition. Like last year Elene Gedevanishvilli and Ashley Wagner competed at Jr. Worlds but had already been to senior worlds, senior nationals, and in Elene's case, the Olympics, so they had much more experience and knew the system better than a lot of the young junior girls who were on their first season of juniors. We saw this at the 2008 JGPF too, Becky Bereswill and Alexe Gilles medaled even though they are middle of the pack senior skaters in the US, but because they were at a junior event, they could win.

Caroline won her Junior World Title as a teeny 13 year old though, before she went through her big growthspurt. Most of the medal favorites this year are older: Christina is 16, Agnes is turning 16 this summer, Kanako turned 15 in the fall, Kiri will be 15 in a few weeks, Polina turns 15 over the summer. Only Anna and Polina are still 13, and they turn 14 in March and April. I think a lot of Junior Worlds success and what it means for the skater's in seniors depends on if they win their junior medals before or after they've had their big growth spurts. In the case of the top 2 here, I don't know if Kanako and Anna will grow a lot more or not, they could, but they look pretty well proportioned now so they might not get much taller and just fill out a bit in which case they are less likely to disappear on the senior level then the girls who might grow 4 inches between now and when they move on to the senior level (what happened to Caroline).

Great point! Many of these phenoms are just not going to be as good jumpers after puberty and/or their true adult size. Oksana was not nearly as proficient once she got the curves. Others like Kwan were total work horses with great coaching and solid fundamentals

It's the junior worlds. Note the top skaters at some point or another WON Junior worlds. You just don't get very far without the Junior world title. If they can't handle junior worlds, they will just become an also-ran at the senior level.

??? Wherever do you get that idea? Didn't Sasha Cohen only come like 6th at JW before coming 4th at the Olympics and going on to numerous other senior podium finishes? (and whether or not she reached her "potential", let's surely not call her an "also-ran"). Taking 2 other examples off the top of my head: Jeff Buttle, 7th at JW; Joannie Rochette 8th and 5th at JW: both Senior World and Olympic medallists.... Methinks the "exceptions" are rather numerous. People peak at different times.

Originally Posted by silverlake22
Caroline won her Junior World Title as a teeny 13 year old though, before she went through her big growthspurt. Most of the medal favorites this year are older: Christina is 16, Agnes is turning 16 this summer, Kanako turned 15 in the fall, Kiri will be 15 in a few weeks, Polina turns 15 over the summer. Only Anna and Polina are still 13, and they turn 14 in March and April. I think a lot of Junior Worlds success and what it means for the skater's in seniors depends on if they win their junior medals before or after they've had their big growth spurts. In the case of the top 2 here, I don't know if Kanako and Anna will grow a lot more or not, they could, but they look pretty well proportioned now so they might not get much taller and just fill out a bit in which case they are less likely to disappear on the senior level then the girls who might grow 4 inches between now and when they move on to the senior level (what happened to Caroline).

But to me and I could be wrong a huge reason Caroline has her issues because she always had horrific jumping technique. When you are little and have no hips, you can get away with muscling everything and horrific technique. But when you get bigger and hips, its harder to muscle those jumps if your technique is terrible....

I'm not saying puberty can't make things difficult. Because it can for some if they get really tall or really fill out like Cynthia Paneuf or Elene G. But in Caroline's case, I have a feeling that things would be totally different for her if she learned how to jump correctly from the very beginning.

I don't think Yu-na' Kim's very little issues with puberty, was just because she's tall/thin/Asian. Although I'm sure it helped. I'm sure its also big time because she had incredible technique from the very beginning.

Anna got mad extension. Everything she does seemed wild and unpolished, but she got the goods. Can't wait to see what's next for this girl.
I really like Polina Agafonova. Her opening was a step sequence. Very cool. I like her program layout. I like her spins, like her position on air.
Polina Shelepen is lipping?
Wow, Russia ladies look solid for Sochi.
Murakami has good companies.

Anna got mad extension. Everything she does seemed wild and unpolished, but she got the goods. Can't wait to see what's next for this girl.
I really like Polina Agafonova. Her opening was a step sequence. Very cool. I like her program layout. I like her spins, like her position on air.
Polina Shelepen is lipping?
Wow, Russia ladies look solid for Sochi.
Murakami has good companies.

The scary thing is that the Russians have MORE coming up. Can you imagine how the USFSA and Japan are going to react when Elizaveta, Adelina and then a year later Julia shows up? These kids are going to have to be good competitors to even make it to the international stage, and all of those internal competitions like Cup of Russia is going to help too IMO.

I like Polina A too. She could use a bit more personality but I think that will come in time.. She's 13. I Loved her short program it was adorable. I know people keep saying puberty puberty, but you never know. She may never grow that big and she seems to be getting bigger from what I first saw and seems fine. (She can move to pairs too.) I like her better than Shelepen because Shelepen is messy.

Thanks so much! Wow, Anna's jumps look so much better! She is adorable, she attacked every second of that program and her footwork is awesome, I'm also impressed with how she enters those jumps out of difficult transitions and her spin positions, she has great extension but those positions were also ones I haven't seen a lot before. She looked really happy, she did great!

Polina Agafonova is also adorable, and wow, that 3lz-3t was pretty impressive. And her spins , they are on par with Mirai and Caroline's spins! She is a very artistic skater I'm excited to see how her skating develops in the future.

Shelepen wasn't as bad as I thought she would be when I saw the score. I still don't like her skating as much as the other two Russian girls here but her basic skating seems to have improved. The jumps are a little concerning but it looks like she has grown a lot, I just have to wonder if the height increase alone is affecting her jumps what will happen when she starts to gain weight. Anyhow, I was glad that she didn't seem upset in the Kiss and Cry, that's good news. She is a cute girl too.

Looking good Russia! The great thing is that there are even more girls coming up! I wonder if Shelepen and Ovcharova will skate on the junior grand prix again next year or move up to the senior grand prix?

But to me and I could be wrong a huge reason Caroline has her issues because she always had horrific jumping technique. When you are little and have no hips, you can get away with muscling everything and horrific technique. But when you get bigger and hips, its harder to muscle those jumps if your technique is terrible....

I'm not saying puberty can't make things difficult. Because it can for some if they get really tall or really fill out like Cynthia Paneuf or Elene G. But in Caroline's case, I have a feeling that things would be totally different for her if she learned how to jump correctly from the very beginning.

I don't think Yu-na' Kim's very little issues with puberty, was just because she's tall/thin/Asian. Although I'm sure it helped. I'm sure its also big time because she had incredible technique from the very beginning.

You are probably right, Caroline does have bad technique. Mirai struggled all of last year too though and I feel like her technique was pretty solid. Mirai was different than a lot of people though in that she went through puberty all at once and grew like 5 inches and 30 pounds in one year. Now that's she's adjusted though, she is back on track and doing very well again, while the same can't quite be said for Caroline Zhang. I'm sure technique does have something to do with it. That is why the US commentators were so impressed with Christina Gao, her technique is rock solid and her jumps are always rotated - she has yet to develop all of the skills needed to be a top skater on the senior level but she has the right coach and right technique to get her there.

i watched anna and kanako's short programs and found kanako to be more polished, more engaging and faster! and i really enjoyed her footwork!

Kanako is great, and she would have beat Anna but her 3t-3t was downgraded so the combination was only worth 5.3 points versus Anna's 3lz-2lo which is 7.5 points. I really love Anna though she is so expressive and has really nice spirals and extensions with her long legs and arms.